


Why are You Afraid of the Dark?

by No_Birdness_Like_Snow_Birdness (TheEruditeGrammacist)



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 00:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3270170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEruditeGrammacist/pseuds/No_Birdness_Like_Snow_Birdness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching, waiting. It is my job, my duty, my responsibility. When the darkness envelops you completely, that is when I can strike. I wait, wait for the light that surrounds and protects you to fade.</p><p>The tale of why Charlie, the Night Monster, attacks you. (Formerly called "The Tale of the Night Monster")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why are You Afraid of the Dark?

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was thinking, why does Charlie attack the player? I mean, she was a nice woman back when she was human. So why does she now attack any and every innocent player she can, when they haven't ever done anything against her? And why does she only ever attack the player, leaving spiders, pigmen, and everything else alone? Well, here's my take on it. Hope you enjoy.  
> NOTE: I have renamed this story, but no other changes have been made to its content.

I watch.

And I wait. 

I see everything.

There is nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide, nowhere to escape from me. I lurk in every shadow. I AM every shadow.

Even yours. I am watching you right now.

Watching, waiting. It is my job, my duty, my responsibility. When the darkness envelops you completely, that is when I can strike. I wait, wait for the light that surrounds and protects you to fade.

And it is all Maxwell’s fault.

Maxwell, with his sick experiments, with that horrid book, did this to me. To you. To himself. To all of us.

But me especially. He turned me into a monster. 

You, his puppets, his playthings. You call me a monster. You warn newcomers of the monster that lurks in the dark. You cower by your fires at night, in fear of the one trying to save you. The one on your side. The one who you call “The Night Monster.”

“Charlie,” I want to say. “Charlie. My name is Charlie.” But you cannot hear me.

I want to reach out to you. I try to warn you. I watch from every shadow as you struggle to stave off hunger, insanity, death, and me. I watch as you try to locate the Door, and as you scramble to assemble the Wooden Thing. I try to stop you. You don’t know what fate awaits you if you succeed. You would rather die. I am only trying to help you. 

You, Maxwell’s little pawns, stumble blindly towards him, unaware that you also stumble towards eternal damnation. I cannot warn you. Believe me, I have tried.

So I have to try to stop you. Death is preferable to the fate that Maxwell will trick you into should you reach him. My only wish is that I could simply send you back to the world you know.

I tell Maxwell to stop, to send you back. I tell him that you have done nothing, nothing to deserve the fate that he alone deserves. The fate that he deserves for having brought it on himself, nobody tempting him or whispering in his ear. He was the one who found that wretched book, he was the one who didn’t get rid of it when he discovered its evil content. He deserves his role, just as I deserve mine for not stopping him when I had the chance. I deserve my role, and I have accepted it. I tell him all of these things, but he does not listen.

So it has fallen to me to become Maxwell’s jailer. It has fallen to me to do my best to eliminate each key that he tries to tempt toward the lock of his cage. And while it kills me to eliminate his keys, as they are nothing but innocent people, like yourself, I know that it is best. I know that if you knew what I know, you wouldn’t bother building a campfire at night. You would walk to me with open arms.

However, when the day finally comes, and it will, when Maxwell finds a key that is strong enough, quick enough, and smart enough to escape me, and to free him from the throne, then Maxwell will escape. He will leave another to his fate, and he will escape to the bittersweet release that is death. Perhaps that key will be you. Perhaps once Maxwell is gone, you shall be the one to have freed him. I will then become your jailer, and when you begin to summon new keys and tempt them toward yourself, then I will be forced to kill them, as I tried to kill you. But for now, Maxwell is the king, prisoner on his own throne, and I am the eternal jailer. And we both watch you as you crouch by your campfire, feeding it logs to stave me off. 

We watch.

And we wait.


End file.
